Schlichting retires from Triton schools

When the Triton High School Class of 2025 processed out of the gym at graduation, it wasn’t only the students who were saying goodbye to one chapter of their life and moving on to another. Superintendent Craig Schlichting was also saying goodbye to the Triton district where he had served as a teacher, principal and superintendent for 32 years.
Becoming a teacher had not always been the first thing in his mind. After graduating from Spring Lake Park High School in 1985 he headed off to the University of Montana in the fall.
Schlicting said that his mother died just two weeks before he left for college. The people he met at the school became not just his friends but also his family.
“That’s part of why I have such fondness for Wyoming,” he said. He still gets together with the friends he made in college, he said, enjoying the cabin, the mountains, hiking, ice fishing, and, in the past, elk hunting, which he said has become “kind of expensive.”
Schlicting went to the University of Wyoming on a football scholarship. The team, he said, was not very good his first year. In fact, the staff was fired before the season ended.
But the team got better in the next few years and in 1990 Schlichting was drafted in the 8th round by the Minnesota Vikings. That was also the year John Randall came in as a free agent. Schlicting said he thought it was “the right place, right time,” but felt the Vikings drafted him because he was from Minnesota but did not fit their system. Next stop was the Pittsburgh Steelers where he was on the practice squad for eight weeks and Mean Joe Green was his coach.
His next pro football stop was in the new World Football League where he was drafted by the New York-New Jersey Knights. He played there for two years. In the summer of 1992, he had his first knee surgery and in 1993 he was asked to play Arena Football. But then, he hurt his other knee and had another surgery.
At that point he said he thought, “I’ve got a college degree,” and it was time for a change.  He had majored in physical education and health. Finding teaching jobs was difficult at the time, he said, and he applied to 25 districts and got two interviews. One of those interviews was at Triton and he returned to Minnesota.
When he started at Triton 32 years ago, the district had just recently consolidated the Claremont, Dodge Center and West Concord districts. Grades 7, 8 and 9 were in West Concord, grades 10-12 in Dodge Center, and grades K-6 were located in schools in each community.
His first year in the district was also the first year Triton played in the HVL. “It was a fun time,” he said. The district had just been formed, and sports helped provide a sense of unity. “Success in sports can bring people together,” he said.
There were, of course, some tough times also, he said, as the district consolidated all the schools into the one building in Dodge Center.
“Overall,” he said, “it turned out really well. Nobody wants to see schools closed but districts have to live within the budget. Having all students at one buildng, he said, has helped in organizing bus routes and the high school students go down to the elementary area to help those students, he said.
After serving first as a teacher and coach, and then as the high school principal and a coach, he moved up to the top position. As he was settling into the position the district was trying to get a levy passed and then COVID hit, upending all aspects of education. Schlicting said the levy had failed three times before it was finally passed. After talking with people, he said, it became apparent that the voters were not really against the referendum but rather felt they were not informed why it was necessary.
The district heard them, he said, kept the levy amount the same but shared the need and helped them understand why it was necessary and it passed.
The COVID years, he said, everything became so political and many things just didn’t make sense. He gave credit to the teachers during that time because they never quit and that is what makes a school special.
What he has enjoyed the most during his career, he said, has been working with the kids. As superintendent, he said, he has not been able to do that as much as he would like. Teachers don’t always see the benefits or rewards of their job, he said, and it’s a good feeling when years later a former student tells one the difference they made in a life.
As much as he has loved working with students and staff, he said, he won’t miss other aspects of the job such as dealing with the difficulties of school finances.
Schlichting said he has gotten to know a lot of people in the area and they have become his friends. He also said he has enjoyed working with Luke Lutterman over the past year as the transition to a new superintendent is made.
He said he has no definite plans for his retirement but has “a lot of things to do around the house.” One of the things the Schlichtings plan on doing this summer is spending time with their four sons. All four of their sons followed in their father’s footsteps to the University of Wyoming. The oldest has graduated and recently became a state trooper in Minnesota. Their second son graduated in May with a degree in construction management and the two youngest are in their second year at Wyoming in construction management.
He and his wife are going to a wedding in Wyoming this year, he said, and will not have to hurry to come back from the trip.
Ultimately, he said, he wants to find a way to do what he loves the most, work with kids.